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Kitchen Technology is Political! A Feminist Perspective on Human-

Technology Relations using the Example of the Thermomix

Article in suburban zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung - November 2021

DOI: 10.36900/suburban.v9i3/4.596

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s u b \ u r b a n . journal for critical urban research

Essay
2021, Volume 9, Issue 3/4
pages 219-239
magazine-suburban.com
10.36900/suburban.v9i3/4.596

Kitchen technology is political!

A feminist perspective on human-technology relations
using the example of the Thermomix

Marlene Hobbs

Currently, digitalized kitchen appliances are being mobilized as a solution to the

incompatibility of reproductive and gainful employment, a challenge that women still
have to cope with for the most part. This article asks to what extent domestic technologies
can change gendered reproductive work and how human-technology relations are
expressed in spatial practices. The living space with the social practices that take place in it is
considered in the sense of Feminist Urban Studies and Feminist Technology Studies as a
central site of negotiation of gender relations and as an arena of technologization. Using
the example of the increasingly digitalized kitchen machine Thermomix, I conducted a
qualitative case study to investigate the significance of technology for gendered
practices in the household. By looking at the spatial location of kitchen technology and
symbolic references to it, it becomes clear how gendered human-technology relations
help to shape work and living and thus manifest gender inequalities on the one hand and
enable new visibilities on the other.

Initial submission: April 30, 2020; online publication: November 26, 2021 An
English abstract can be found at the end of the document.

New technical devices are constantly finding their way into our living
spaces. The household is thus a place where new technologies[1] are
becoming commonplace. Currently, digital technologies promise a better
spatial and temporal organization of reproduction and gainful
employment in almost all areas of life (Carstensen 2018). One hope here
is to organize work in such a way that gainful employment, child rearing,
housework, and leisure become more compatible; a challenge that
women[2] in particular face (Speck 2019). While spatio-temporal changes
in social reproduction through mechanization and related gender
relations are discussed, for example, in debates about the smart city (cf.
Carstensen 2018), the debate about reproductive work and current
processes of mechanization in residential interiors is still in its infancy
(Isselstein 2021: 103; Marquardt 2018: 285). This article asks to what
extent domestic technologies can change gendered reproductive labor and
how human-technology relations are expressed in spatial practices. The
living space with the social practices that take place in it is thereby
examined in terms of Feminist Urban Studies (cf. Hayden 2017 [1981],
1981) and Feminist
220 s u b \ u r b a n 2021, Vol. 9, Issue 3/4

Technology research (Marquardt 2019: 216 f.) is not understood as a

closed, private sphere, but as a central site of negotiation of gender
relations and the scene of technization. This goes hand in hand with a
critique of the dualism of a masculinely connoted public sphere versus a
femininely associated private sphere, as well as of technicization as a cost-
effective solution to social problems such as the current crisis of social
reproduction (Marquardt 2018: 294).
Smart refrigerators, shopping apps, robotic vacuum cleaners, or
automated kitchen machines are currently being mobilized as solutions to time-
consuming tasks in the modern household (Kindermann 2018;
MacLeavy/Lapworth 2019). Such promises are not new. The enormous
household mechanization in the first half of the 20th century contributed
to the individualization of domestic work, which made women the main
responsible for the daily reproductive work in the private household,
cementing the duality of public/private and male/female.
Due to its high density of technical devices and the gendered division
of labor that takes place there, the kitchen offers a promising entry point
for understanding contemporary human-technology relations. Using the
example of the increasingly digitalized kitchen appliance Thermomix, I
conducted a qualitative ethnographic case study to investigate the
significance of this technology for gendered practices in the household.
For this purpose, I developed questions about this current phenomenon
against the background of previous findings on household technologization
and current concepts of feminist technology research, which I explored in an
empirical study with users of the device.
In order to classify the mechanization of the household historically, I
first refer to studies on the social consequences of the electrification of
households in the first chapter. In section 1.2, I explore the changing
meaning of the kitchen space over time and its mechanization from a feminist
perspective. Insights from feminist technology studies on the historically
evolved connections between technology, gender, and the spaces of
domestic work will then be complemented by current concepts of
feminist science and technology studies (STS). With the help of detailed
analyses of domestic technologies, I take up specific moments of the
relationship between technology and gender in section 1.3, which can be
used to classify gendered practices around the Thermomix in chapter
two. By framing technologies as social relations, I aim to bring to light their
gendered effects and reveal possible renegotiations of power relations in
technology use. The aim of my contribution is to contour the household as a
site of negotiation of the relationship between technology and gender and
to point out potentials of a feminist consideration of current human-
technology relations.

1. Feminist Perspectives on Household Technologization

Despite increasing gainful employment, women still do most of the

unpaid work in the household, but also in the
Hobbs 221

raising children and caring for relatives (Speck 2019; Winker 2015). Today, the
debate about unequally distributed and invisible domestic and care work is
usually framed as a care debate. Care work is understood as paid as well as
unpaid care activities such as educating, caring, teaching, and advising; this
puts the focus on the content of work (Winker 2015: 7). In contrast, theorists
from Marxist contexts use the term reproductive labor to emphasize the
importance of producing and maintaining labor power itself-for example,
childbearing-and its function in maintaining capitalism (Cox/Federici
1975). I will stick with the term domestic labor in this article, as I include
under it the concrete household activities such as cleaning, cooking, washing,
vacuuming, dishwashing, and so on, around which the empirical example
revolves. I understand care work as part of housework insofar as it is planned,
agreed upon, distributed, and remembered.
Women's double burden of paid gainful employment and
Regina Becker-Schmidt (2010) refers to this unpaid reproductive work
as "double socialization. Accordingly, all women who, in addition to
gainful employment, "as a matter of course" take on the majority of
domestic and care work in their own households are doubly socialized.
The traditional view of gender roles, according to which men are solely
responsible for securing the family income, no longer corresponds to
social reality. However, it still has an impact on the gender-specific
"distribution of paid and unpaid, well-paid and less well-paid work. [...]
even if both [men and women] work at comparable levels" (ibid.: 72). As
a result, domestic work remains devalued with its location in the female,
private sphere. Claudia Koppetsch and Sarah Speck (2015) further show how
an imbalance in the distribution of domestic and care work is equally
maintained in a supposedly equal distribution between heterosexual
couples through latent regulatives in everyday practices.
Gender-sensitive analyses of household techniques are based on.
the feminist critique of the spatial separation of production and
reproduction work and the resulting isolation of women in the private
household. Feminist architectural, planning, and urban critiques of the
1970s focused primarily on the lack of orientation of housing floor plans
and settlement structures toward reproductive labor (Becker 2010: 807).
Built environments and infrastructures were here negotiated as
expressions of patriarchal social structures and power relations. Feminist
studies of technology have drawn on housing space and the household as
sites of technological change (Cockburn 1997; Hayden 1984; Schwartz
Cowan 1983).[3] The enormous mechanization and rationalization of
households in the first half of the
In the 1970s and 80s, the Second Women's Movement became a subject of
feminist debate. In the following, I will highlight some of the findings of
feminist technology studies in order to trace the effects of the
mechanization of households in connection with social change and
societal demands and to derive current questions from them.
222 s u b \ u r b a n 2021, Vol. 9, Issue 3/4

1.1. More work for mother: effects of household electrification

The entry of electrical appliances into households peaked in the United

States and parts of Europe in the mid-20th century (Schwartz Cowan
1976). In the 1920s and 30s, the poor economic situation of the middle class led
to a reduced employment of domestic help; due to better housing and
educational opportunities, but also due to the high demand for labor in
wartime, more women again went into gainful employment (Llewellyn
2004: 46). Electric stoves, small appliances, and washing machines were
supposed to compensate for the lack of domestic help and time for child
rearing and leisure. With Fordism, the functionalist and rationalizing
processes of factories were increasingly transferred to households
(Hayden 1984: 70). Technology researcher Ruth Schwartz Cowan (1976: 23)
a p t l y calls this a failed "industrial revolution in the home." Women did not
remain specialized wage laborers in women-specific fields, such as the textile
or bakery industries, as they had in the prewar period, but became
managers and workers in the private home. Contrary to the assumption
that mechanization simultaneously meant a professionalization of
domestic work, its individualization was ultimately accompanied by a
de-skilling and de-specialization and thus a devaluation of labor
relations.
Feminist technology studies of the 1970s and 80s presented the
questioned the prevailing technological determinism, i.e., the assumption
that the introduction of appliances into households could solve social
problems. Using quantitative time-budget analyses, they found, for
example, that the time men and children spent on housework decreased,
while it remained constant for women because only one person was
needed to operate the machines (see Bose/Bereano/ Malloy 1984;
Hausen 1987; Schwartz Cowan 1983). The studies showed that while
new household appliances can make some tasks easier, they also entail
new tasks and higher demands, such as cleanliness or hygiene, which
ultimately save neither time nor labor (Bose/Bereano/Malloy 1984; Schwartz
Cowan 1983). In addition to the increased demands on housework and its
individualization, mechanization also contributed to the obscuring and
devaluing of housework: As the machine did the laundry, washed the
dishes, and cooked the food, there would eventually be more time to drive the
children to school and appointments. The increased demands for good
parenting ultimately meant an emotionalization of activities. Regardless
of their capabilities, this placed increased demands on women. In this
context, Schwartz Cowan (1976) describes an exacerbation of class
differences, as working-class women were more burdened than middle-
class housewives with the increased demands of housework in addition
to wage labor. Thus, technology use is deeply embedded in social
relations and social change.
Today, the model of the individualized household appears as a self-
understandable. In fact, however, it is the result of a complex histo- rical
process that is partly responsible for mechanization. Technical
Hobbs 223

Appliances made the image of the solely responsible housewife possible

in the first place, and the demands placed on her manifested the
romanticized image of the regulated home as a safe, restful haven, which
is repeatedly questioned in feminist discourses (cf. Blunt/ Dowling 2006;
Brickell 2012; Hayden 1984). At the same time, looking at the history of the
mechanization of domestic work opens up new perspectives: If the phenomenon
of domestic work as we know it today has become historical, it is changeable!
Therefore, the specific social arrangements of mechanization will be
discussed in the following using the example of the kitchen.

1.2. Kitchen politics: technology and gender in the kitchen

How the gendering of housework is spatially and technically organized

can be seen in the transformation of kitchens. Social and cultural science
works look at specific practices in kitchens to examine phenomena
negotiated there, such as housework, design, and rationalization (Hayden
2011; Jerram 2006; Llewellyn 2004; Meah 2016), but also consumption,
identity, or gender relations (Hand/Shove 2004; Hand/ Shove/Southerton
2007; Johnson 2006; Meah 2016; Saarikangas 2006). The kitchen is a
suitable starting point and subject for approaching the relationship
between household, technology, and gender from a feminist perspective
for several reasons. As a symbol of the modern household, it is central to
the feminist struggle for the visibility of housework. This is evident in
early as well as current polemic writings such as Counter-planning from
the kitchen (Cox/ Federici 1975), the manifesto of the Wages for Housework
campaign, or the Kitchen Politics collective's series of (queer) feminist
analyses of current labor and gender relations (Cooper et al. 2015;
Federici 2015; Kitchen Politics 2015). Furthermore, the place of the kitchen is
subject to constant mechanization and, in accordance with social
imaginaries of modern family life, is constantly being adapted
architecturally and technically. From the late 19th century to the present,
studies of kitchen designs consistently highlight the kitchen as a site of
negotiation of middle-class life in urban, Western industrialized regions
(Hayden 2017 [1981], 2011, 1984; Llewellyn 2004; Meah 2016). These studies
show that the one-person private kitchen, full of consumer goods that
bind the housewife to the home, was never the only type of kitchen
imaginable, nor that it was accepted uncontroversially. In the following,
I will discuss some of the connections between the social demands on
the kitchen space and the gender relations negotiated in it.
Alternative visions of the kitchen are already in the late 19th and early
20th century. With the idea of "cooperative housekeeping," the feminist
Melusina Fay Pierce propagated paid, collectivized housework in the
1860s, which was to result in a reduction of private kitchens. In so-called one-
kitchen houses, an idea dating back to early 20th-century socialist feminist
Lily Braun, housework was to be collectivized to allow women access to
wage labor and public life (Hayden 1981, 2017). Cooking and
224 s u b \ u r b a n 2021, Vol. 9, Issue 3/4

Some designers and architects equipped large kitchens that could cater for
many people at once, or childcare concepts for children were included in
the houses. However, these kitchen concepts quickly disappeared behind
the scene of consumerist models for the private household of the nuclear
family (Hayden 2011). In the wake of the industrial revolution of the
household described above, principles of efficiency were applied to
kitchen design. Thus, the kitchen held forth as a space for
experimentation and as a site for women's work to be optimized over
against the already optimized male factory work (Llewellyn 2004: 45).
Here, too, the propagated goal was to relieve women. Behind this,
however, was in particular the high demand for wage labor (Meah 2016:
43).
Architects hired for new social housing projects after World War I
wanted to radically reduce the workload for the increased number of
single women. The well-known and concurrent models of the Frankfurt
and Munich kitchens were based, among other things, on the ideas of the
labor-saving "new housekeeping" of the housekeeper Christine Frederick
(1913). Technical advances in industry made it possible to prefabricate
kitchen modules for the new apartments being built. The application of
time-and-motion prin- ciples aimed to shorten work trips and prevent fatigue
(Llewellyn 2004: 45; Meah 2016: 43). In the spirit of productivity and
obtaining affordable housing for working women, architect Margarete
Schütte- Lihotzky's prefabricated Frankfurt kitchen reduced living
spaces to their most substantial work areas, spatially separating work and
leisure. This type of workshop-kitchen consisted of built-in modules arranged
in such a way that all areas could be reached by the shortest possible routes in
an efficient sequence. Among other things, the Frankfurt kitchen was
intended to free women from traditional family structures (Jerram 2006:
547). However, critics of such models criticized, among other things,
that they saw women more as consumers than producers in the impersonal
spaces, which were to be equipped with all kinds of utensils. The
planning, which was guided by the idea of efficiency, also brought criticism
from the residents. The lack of space for social interaction while working
in the (decidedly small) kitchen and the standardized furnishings were
perceived as isolating and patronizing (Meah 2016: 44 f.). While the
rational kitchen, with its separation of work (cooking in the kitchen) and
the social practice of eating (which was outsourced to the living/dining
room), was sometimes perceived as positive among women from middle-
class middle-class backgrounds, it was met with resistance, especially
among working-class women. They criticized the fact that the home was
increasingly becoming a second place of work (ibid.: 45 f.).
The Munich Kitchen was a response to this criticism and dement-
The kitchen was thus reconnected with the home. Residential kitchens
with kitchenettes were intended to soften the boundaries between social
life and housework (Jerram 2006: 549). This allowed women to
simultaneously perform housework while supervising children.
Undoubtedly, the built structure and the
Hobbs 225

facilities, despite the greater room for maneuver compared to the small,
closed working kitchen, certain social standards, for example in family
life, continue to prevail (ibid.: 544).
Despite taking into account their double burden, kitchen designs,
contrary to their promises, did not liberate women or reduce their
workload. Rather, they manifested societal demands for different versions
of the modern woman - with or without children, low or higher earning.
Although the new kitchen architecture represented eman- zipatory attempts
to improve women's working conditions, historical analyses show that the
possibility of self-determination in the design of living spaces and their
appropriation according to personal preferences were especially important
for the housewifely inhabitants. The provision of objects and the ability to
set oneself apart from the neighbors, for example, by designing one's own
household were important in this regard (Jerram 2006: 548; Meah 2016:
47).
Feminist studies on the rationalized kitchen and its transformation
into openly designed, more multifunctional spaces highlight in particular
the physical visibility of housework within the home as an achievement for
the people doing it and their needs (Saari- kangas 2006: 168). Thus, the
image of the home as a place of recreation, which primarily reflects male
experiences, is countered by a perspective that not only incorporates
female lifestyles, but also makes them spatially perceptible. Currently, the
ideal image of the modern kitchen is characterized by multifunctional,
open design concepts in which living should take place alongside
cooking. Since the new millennium, the kitchen and cooking
increasingly represent leisure activities whose needs for technological
equipment go beyond the avoidance of housework (Cox 2013;
Hand/Shove/Southerton 2007; Meah 2016). Techniques and devices are
part of the practices through which the kitchen is produced as a site of family
life. While appliances are meant to speed up or improve cooking processes,
they are incorporated into the performance, the doing family, that makes
the kitchen the place of everyday life that it is today (Meah 2016: 49).
Identity constructions of modern family life are included in this, as are the
maintenance of lifestyle and status through consumption and the
construction of gendered relationships (Cox 2013; Hayden 2017 [1981]).
In the gendered kitchen, devices are simultaneously integrated into processes
of production, reproduction, and consumption. This reciprocal relationship
is illustrated in femi- nist studies of technology using household
technology as an example. Section 1.3 first describes relevant influences of
Feminist STS on the conceptualization of the relationship between technology
and gender, and then addresses moments of negotiation of gendered human-
technology relationships at structural, symbolic, and material levels.

1.3. Gender politics of design:

The relationship of household technology and gender

The paradigm of the co-construction of technology and gender is still the

fundamental assumption in various currents of feminist
226 s u b \ u r b a n 2021, Vol. 9, Issue 3/4

technology research (Ernst 2017; Teubner 2012; Wajcman 2015). Technology

is thus both a source and a consequence of gender relations. Gender is
understood here as a category whose meaning is "constantly renegotiated"
via technology development and use (Ernst 2017: 2 f.). Despite some
fundamental changes in gender relations and access to technical fields for
women over the past 50 years, the association of technology with masculinity
has lost none of its relevance (Carstensen 2018: 309; Teubner 2012: 176).
While early social constructivist critiques of technology were
particularly concerned with historical male dominance in technology
development and the disadvantageous consequences for women, current
approaches in Feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS)[4] expand this to
include a focus on technologies themselves and their meaning as social
relations (Ernst 2017; Wajcman 2015; Weber 2017). Different approaches
each offer important points of departure for examining the relations of
technology and gender. In what follows, I take up approaches that are
particularly significant for a critical examination of gendered human-
technology relations.
Socialist feminists have described the relationship between
technology and gender as an expression of capitalist relations. For them,
the modern meaning of technology is deeply rooted in the hardening of
the gender division of labor since the beginning of industrialization and
the concomitant exclusion of women from technical fields. This is the
basis of technology researcher Judy Wajcman's (2006) social
constructivist understanding of technology as masculine culture.
Accordingly, technology and masculinity are thought of as symbolically
verfloch ten: "The very definition of technology [...] has a male bias."
(Wajcman 2006: 709) Those who think of engineering or technologies
probably first imagine large industrial machines or complicated robots
and algorithms, not household utensils or cooking processes. The
exclusion of the technical from domains with feminine connotations has been
repeatedly criticized by feminist researchers of technology, using the
example of the lack of thematization of household technologies (see
Cock- burn 1997; Schwartz Cowan 1983). Technologies in traditional
places of women's work, such as gardening and housework, remain mostly
invisible in the social discourse on technology - as current debates on digi-
talization in cities show, for example. This ultimately produces a
stereotype that portrays women as technically incompetent and
establishes hierarchical dualisms between technical-non-technical, inside-
outside, and female-male.
Current feminist STS understand techniques themselves as social
relations in order to show power imbalances and hierarchies in gendered
human-technology relations. By broadening the understanding of
technology, they react to the gender blindness of the sociology of
technology. They criticize the common idea that technology and society
constitute each other, but that technologies themselves are not social
phenomena. The term sociotechnique emphasizes the importance of
techniques for social action and as political artifacts, and alludes to the
blurring boundaries between "the
Hobbs 227

social" and "the technical" (Bauer/Heinemann/Lemke 2017). Accordingly,

in sociotechnical systems, technical activities arise from the connection of
techniques and material culture with social labor relations (Bray 2007: 40).
Household technology takes on a special role because of the
intersecting verge- lated levels here. Household appliances are rarely
developed directly for the household - let alone specifically to save time
in the home - but they usually originate from industrial, commercial or
military technologies and thus have very different effects on domestic
practices (Wajcman 2015: 122). Their adaptation for domestic use in a
capitalist society occurs only after some reforms, a reduction in
production costs, and thus possible scaling for private use. An example of
this is microwave technology, which is a follow-on product of radar
technologies for food preparation in U.S. Navy submarines (ibid.: 123). In
an extensive study of gender relations in the production, marketing, and use of
the microwave, Cynthia Cockburn and Susan Omrod (1993) highlight it as
a techno- logy undergoing transformation in its gendered coding. Its
initially intended household use-rapid cooking and the reheating of
precooked meals-was directed toward single men. With its appropriation by
women, the microwave moved from the electronics store for male-coded
cutting-edge technology such as televisions and stereos to the household
department next to washing machines and vacuum cleaners, which are
female-coded, functional, but technically devalued household appliances
(Cockburn/Omrod 1993: 100). This hierarchization, through which the
technicality of household appliances is downplayed, materialized in the
case of the microwave oven in the appliance itself. In a process of de-
technicalization, classic stove elements were incorporated in order to
clarify its location in the kitchen, as sociologist Danielle Chabaud-
Rychter (2005) points out:
"This de-technification consisted of downplaying the role of the
magnetron (which produces the microwaves) and developing
accessories common to classical stoves, such as a grate or grilling
devices." (Chabaud-Rychter 2005: 80)

Through their materiality, technologies in turn prescribe who can use

them and how. In the course of this, Chabaud-Rychter speaks of a
"family politics of technologies" (2005: 84) as part of the gender politics
of design. This becomes visible, for example, in kitchens in which only
one or two people can work at the same time.
On the symbolic level of the relationship between technology and gender,
everyday processes of subjectivation play a decisive role. The importance of
the representation of actors or phenomena in technical processes as
masculine or feminine is emphasized, since certain ideas are associated
with gender-specific attributions. Thus, gender subjectivity and identity are
negotiated in socio-technical systems (Cockburn/Omrod 1993: 40).
Cockburn and Omrod note at times that cooking, despite its diverse use
228 s u b \ u r b a n 2021, Vol. 9, Issue 3/4

of technologies is rarely understood as something technical. This is due to t h e

association with the female gender and the private space of the home. In
contrast, they highlight cooking as a technical process: "Cooking, as much as
engineering, is a technology. It involves using tools to transform matter. It is a
production process. It involves special knowledge." (Ibid.: 98)
Symbolic exclusions and material changes shape human-technology
relations in the household. New, stubborn appropriations of technological
processes can point to possible forms of resistance and practices of
refusal. As can be seen in the appropriation of the restrictive architecture
of kitchens or the transformation of the microwave oven, new models
and forms of technology may emerge in their respective contexts of
application. Thus, theoretically
"[e]ach new technology [...] is always an occasion to renegotiate
power and gender relations as well as to create instabilities in
social orders, and thus, for example, to soften and set in motion
gendered role attributions and divisions of labor" (Carstensen
2018: 309).

At the same time, new technologies are defined in specific ways within
dominant arrangements and can likewise uphold the hierarchies of
structuring gender relations. Understanding technologies as socio-
techniques can reveal how human-technology relations are hierarchized on
structural, symbolic, and material levels, and reveal where appropriations
may be taking place.
In view of the changing responsibilities for housework with the
mechanization of kitchens and considering the moments of gendered
human-technology relations, new questions arise for current socio-technical
systems in the living space:
1. Regarding the gendered division of labor: How is gendered labor defined
through technology use and what boundaries are drawn? What
demands and needs are generated by new technologies, and what new
responsibilities emerge? What non-intended effects arise in human-
technology relationships?
2. Regarding the materiality of technologies: How are techno- logies
shaped by prevailing gender arrangements? What assumptions about
use inform their design?
3. Regarding the living spaces: How do the human-technology
relationships and the living spaces construct each other? To which
household constellations and forms of living are the technologies
directed and how are they used there? Which (in)visibilities of
domestic and care work are generated in the human-technology
relationships?

In Section 2, I approach these questions based on my own empirical

investigation into the gendering of Thermomix practices.
Hobbs 229

2. Gendered Thermomix Practices

In order to understand the significance of increasing mechanization for

gendered human-technology relations in the household, I conducted a
qualitative study of the multifunctional kitchen appliance Thermomix.
As the microwave study (Cockburn/ Omrod 1993) has shown, an in-depth
examination of the practices surrounding a particular household
appliance can make visible the changing moments of the relationship
between technology and gender. The microwave oven was so well suited
as a subject of study because it was already established in household
routines at the time of the study (ibid.: 16). The subject of this study is
the Thermomix, a kitchen appliance developed in Germany in 1971,
which is now referred to as a "kitchen classic" (Kindermann 2018). Its
main functions are simultaneous chopping and heating, to which
additional functions have been added over time and, for several years,
have included digital features such as automated sending of a shopping
list to a smartphone. The Thermomix promises to optimize a stressful
everyday life while still cooking healthy and delicious meals. In this way, it
joins the ranks of technological solutions to social challenges, such as the
double burden on women, which have been widely analyzed and
criticized by feminists. My research question was: What is the
significance of the Thermomix for gendered practices in the kitchen?
Digitized combination cooking was understood as an arena of
technological change and the negotiation of gender relations.
My focus on gendered human-technology relationships.
in everyday practices in the living space goes beyond time budget
analyses and questions about the distributed responsibilities of gendered
division of labor of early technology studies. Rather, I have foregrounded
gendered moments and appropriations as well as spatial, material, and
symbolic situatedness of devices in everyday practices. Everyday
practices make the home what it is. They shape material and social
relations, and social demands are reflected in them. To examine the
incorporation of technologies into everyday practices and their co-
creation of social orders, Pink et al. (2016) argue for ethnographic
methods. By having researchers participate in everyday routines, they
capture what those observed actually do and feel (ibid.: 46). In STS,
praxeological approaches have already been applied by reflecting on how
relationships with technologies are established through practices and in
turn influence them (ibid.: 43).
Through personal contacts, I have a fall 2019 "snowball ver-.
I triggered the "Thermomix" project in order to get in contact with
Thermomix users. I conducted guided inter- views with eight individuals
identifying as female and three identifying as male from a total of six
households between November 6 and December 30, 2019. The
individuals were between 21 and
230 s u b \ u r b a n 2021, Vol. 9, Issue 3/4

62 years old and all but one person were employed at least part-time.
Household constellations included two shared apartments with only
female residents, three heterosexual couple households, and one family with a
heterosexual couple and two children. Where possible, I interviewed all
individuals in the household individually in each case to identify
differences in use and references to technology. In keeping with the
underlying ethnographic research approach, the interviews took place in
the homes - if possible in the kitchens - of the users. The Thermomix and
its accessories were shown in place and the appliance was disassembled
and reassembled. The decision for the interview partners was
deliberately not based on a specific group, in order to understand the use
of technology in different arrangements. The decisive commonality of
the households was that they had all been using a Thermomix or a
Thermomix alternative for at least half a year, because I assumed that the
appliance would already be integrated into everyday routines.
In order to find indications as to how far the Thermomix meets the requirements of the
The focus of the interviews was on how the Thermomix influences
people's expectations of cooking and the people cooking, how people
relate to the appliance, and how the Thermomix is integrated into
household routines. Due to the open character of the guided interview,
the subjects were additionally able to set their own priorities. A brief query
of personal data and an assessment of the household chores performed
was conducted via a standardized questionnaire. After each of the
interviews, I prepared thought protocols and a sketch of the living spaces. In
two households, one shared apartment and one couple household, I also
spent an evening cooking together with the residents and the Thermomix.
By participating in the cooking process, I was able to more accurately
understand the individual steps, decisions, design preferences, as well as
the built environment and the importance of the device within it and to the
people cooking and living there. The evaluation of the material was
initially inductive based on the transcripts and protocols. Using the
theoretical terms related to the relationship between technology and
gender, a coding scheme was also created, with the help of which the
individual evaluations were abstracted.
In response to the question of what significance the Thermomix has for ver-
gendered practices in the household, two central theses emerged in the
interviews and at the cooking evenings. First, responsibility for work in
the household is defined and legitimized through gendered moments in
human-technology relations. These moments become evident in
symbolic references and in the materiality of the appliance itself.
Second, the spatial location of technology in the female-associated
kitchen takes on a special significance that reproduces a devaluation of
housework and femininity. In the following, I illustrate this with a few
examples in order to subsequently draw conclusions with regard to my
research question.
Hobbs 231

2.1. Cooking time as free time?

The design of gendered work with the Thermomix

The co-creation of responsibility for work in the household through the

Thermomix is reflected in the symbolic references to the appliance on the
part of the users. The supposed autonomy of the increasingly digitalized
appliance is linked to gender-specific hopes of redistributing housework.
While the labor-saving properties of the Thermomix - similar to the studies on
electrical appliances - produce new demands through expanded
possibilities and thus, in the end, hardly any time or work is saved, several
interviewees nevertheless describe a feeling of responsibility being handed
over to the appliance. Natalie says it is "kind of a nice feeling when your
food is running like this and you're waiting for it like this. And you think to
yourself: Aah. Then it smells like it at some point." (Interview with Natalie,
December 4, 2019)
The fact that the Thermomix "runs" and heats something, draws attention
to it by beeping after the previously determined time has elapsed and stops
the cooking process, creates moments in which the cooking situation can
be abandoned. The fact of "not having to think anymore" (interview with
Lilian, November 18, 2019), "not really paying attention" (interview with
Sebastian, November 25, 2019), or "not having to look anymore" (ibid.) then
suggests a certain autonomy of the device. As a result, situations arose
again and again on the cooking evenings in which the interviewees and I
could talk to each other in peace while something was simmering in the
Thermomix. Natalie told me that she had even gone shopping while food was
cooking in the Thermomix. The desire for less responsibility, i.e., not always
having to stand next to someone, is thus at the same time a desire for spatial
dissociation. In contrast to small, hidden working kitchens, in small
digitized kitchens the appliances could possibly be attended to from other
rooms in the home and draw attention to themselves less through their
visibility than through sounds or messages to another interface such as
the cell phone, tablet or smartwatch. The possible spatial dissolution of
boundaries through the Thermomix is not an explicitly intended effect of
the technology and can be interpreted as an appropriation moment.
Tendencies of a spatial dissolution of boundaries in cooking work became
apparent in the interviews and during cooking, especially in apartments
with small kitchens, for example, when we left the kitchen due to fewer
seating options while the Thermomix was cooking.
The desire to outsource the cooking work or its organi-
sation was mainly expressed by fully employed women in the interviews. In
line with findings from studies on the gendering of cooking (cf.
Neuman/Gottzén/Fjellström 2017), it is more often women who take on
everyday cooking and want to spend less time on it, while men see cooking
as a leisure activity or hobby. For example, Susanne hoped that by
purchasing a Thermomix alternative, she would be able to reduce her
cooking work and have more time for her family on the one hand, and on
the other hand, to compensate for the distribution of cooking work,
which was perceived as unfair:
232 s u b \ u r b a n 2021, Vol. 9, Issue 3/4

"Yes, in principle one wants ... is the housework annoying and

wants to simplify the work. We had ... or I had the ulterior motive, for
one thing, that while I'm picking up the kids or already doing something
around the house, at the same time just the cooking happens by itself."
(Interview with Susanne, November 12, 2019)

In Susanne and Matthew's household, the purchase of the device was

Susanne's idea; however, she assumed that her partner would be
interested in the device, "And at the same time actually also, I had the
hope that this area would also be shared more. And just Matthew being more
supportive of me as well." (Ibid.) In contrast, Matthew prefers to cook
for himself and not leave this to the Thermomix.
In the households surveyed, the purchase of the Thermo mix did not
change the respective distribution of cooking work, regardless of whether
this had been anticipated beforehand or not. Where a redistribution was
hoped for, it was conspicuous that the new technology was supposed to
take care of this, and not a new cooking plan in the shared apartment or
family. Thus, negotiation processes tended to be transferred to the device
and failure to succeed was attributed to failure of the device or a lack of
interest in the device. Ultimately, it follows that in these examples,
negotiation processes about the distribution of cooking work between
people are silenced and the current distribution of work is legitimized
and cemented by the Thermomix. Statements about the independence of
the Thermomix merely disguise its own work.
In addition, the materiality of the appliance itself reproduces specific ideas of
cooking and household management. With the Thermomix, as with the
microwave, the determination of the technology is already inherent in its
appearance. The family policy of the Thermomix is to cook for a maximum
of four people per meal. Thus, the size of the mixing bowl is based on the
typical number of people in a small family. Thus, the capacity of the
Thermomix determines how many people can be cooked for, which the
interviewees rated as negative if, for example, more guests were to be
cooked for.
In addition to these limitations, the appliance's features offer new
possibilities for cooking or making elaborate dishes yourself that would
otherwise have been purchased as ready-made products. Theresa sees
this as an opportunity: "In this hype about doing everything yourself,
regional products, seasonal and so on. That can have a supportive effect.
Because that just takes away these inhibitions and fears to do it
yourself." (Interview with Theresa, December 4, 2019) Consequently,
the food processor shapes the criteria by which food is evaluated: fancy,
healthy, fresh, homemade (instead of purchased and canned) - and the
consistency of the food: preferably fluffy and creamy. Ultimately, in
connection with the Thermomix, needs for healthy, diverse food are first
(co-)created. The emerging demands are embedded in social norms and
trends and cannot be viewed in isolation from them. Health, lifestyle and
cooking trends are transferred to the Thermomix and maintained or even
reinforced by it.
Hobbs 233

Moments of appropriation take place mainly on a small scale, within

the nevertheless highly routinized and gendered cooking practices. The
experiences of the users have already led to technological adaptations, as the
capacity of the Thermomix has been increased with each model. In a reciprocal
process, this again necessitates new appropriations, since the recipes geared to
the larger model can only be carried out with the older models by adjusting
the quantities. Thus, the Thermomix is consti- tuted by social relations and
maintains them itself.

2.2. "... although I like technology, I just wasn't really interested in it".

Overall, the devaluation of femininity and of technicity in the kitchen

space plays a significant role in the specific socio-technical constellation in
which the Thermomix is integrated.

"And then in the same sense with the Thermomix, it was not something
that interested me, because I do the food prep myself and I find it
for me it's actually something that's ... that can be almost ... puts me
in a meditative state. That I can sit there and just sit in the kitchen
and cook. I've got music on, I do all of the cutting and the idea of
the Thermomix and doing that, although I like technology ... I just
wasn't really interested in it." (Interview with Matthew, November
12, 2019)

From Matthew's perspective, cooking is a meditative and relaxing experience

that the Thermomix doesn't fit into. Unlike vacuuming, cooking, from
Matthew's point of view, doesn't require saving time. Theresa, who sees
cooking more as work, sees it differently. She thinks that sometimes "it
should just be q u i c k " (interview with Theresa, December 4, 2019), in
which case the Thermomix can be supportive. After all, "you don't have to
make an event out of every cooking" (ibid.). The classification of cooking
activities into work or leisure time is thus strongly determined by gender and
often corresponds to a traditional distribution of roles in the interviewed
households. This also gives the Thermomix itself a specific - gendered -
meaning, somewhere between a practical everyday appliance and a
gadget that is too technical to be used for meditative leisure activities.
The Thermomix is gendered through such classifications. Its
technicality is not foregrounded, yet it is more than a purely functional device.
Its assessment as "a cool gimmick" (interview with Mona, November 6, 2019)
to "a digital cookbook and a digital cooking pot" (interview with Gaby,
December 30, 2019) is shifted along, among other things, the experience
people have already had with it. That is, the people who know how to use
the Thermomix for themselves and their recipes perceive it as transparent
rather than complicated. It is referred to as a toy on the one hand - i.e., more
like a highly technical, male-coded device - but belittled as a "Thermi"
(interview with Theresa, December 4, 2019) on the other.
In addition, the robotic nature and price of the Thermomix are features
that make it special. Natalie's guests are
234 s u b \ u r b a n 2021, Vol. 9, Issue 3/4

surprised by her "luxury flat share with a Thermomix" (interview with

Natalie, December 4, 2019), and Matthew basically emphasizes the "prestige
thing about it" (interview with Matthew, November 12, 2019) when a robot
does work for him. However, this is more true for the vacuum cleaner
ro- bot than for the Thermomix. The former is coded differently
compared to the Thermomix in the interviews with three of the six
households. Here, the robotic appearance and its characteristic of being
able to travel almost through the entire apartment are decisive for its
assessment as a high-tech appliance. In contrast, the Thermomix is firmly
anchored in the kitchen as an immovable appliance.
In the conversations, cooking crystallizes ostensibly as an activity with
a female connotation. Mothers, aunts, grandmothers, Thermomix
representatives and bloggers are the experts for the Thermomix and are
consulted, for example, on questions about the handling of the food processor
even before the Google search. In this way, users relate not only to the
appliance, but also to the people they know who use the Thermomix or
from whom they learned how to use it. In this context, the Thermomix
remains associated with the image of the woman who is responsible for
family cooking. Theresa makes the association explicit: "If I were
somehow a housewife now, I would easily use it even more." (Interview
with Theresa, December 4, 2019) Moreover, Sebastian relates that his
male work colleagues made fun of the Thermomix. During the research,
I could not help smiling myself sometimes when I swung from the topic
of mechanization to the food processor. Because of its location in the
small family kitchen, the Thermomix is devalued in the conversations as
a kitchen technology overall. In the female-associated household, its
technicity is downplayed by the interlocutors, similar to the case with the
microwave. Although the Thermomix is used beyond the private
household in professional kitchens due to its good chopping function, its
intended function - that of efficient and at the same time healthy to elaborate
cooking - is explicitly geared towards a better reconciliation of work and
family life and contributes to the legitimization of women's double
burden in the application context of the heterosexual couple relationship
or nuclear family.
The practices around the Thermomix are supported on the one hand by the
device itself and the symbolic references of the users to it, and on the
other hand by the prevailing arrangements. In this way, boundaries
within the gendered division of labor are defined and legitimized. The
decisive factor for its gendered use in the interviewed households is its
location in the kitchen. In addition to the structural, symbolic and material
levels of human-technology relations, there is also a spatial component.
However, when considering possible appropriations and dissolutions of
boundaries, a contradiction arises: While cooking with the Thermomix,
moments arise in which the cooking situation can be left. Due to the
occasional autonomy of the appliance, the automatic stop and the audible
signals, cooking can take place in the kitchen while
Hobbs 235

the responsible person is in other rooms. Even if the device is not

mobile, it makes increased freedom of movement possible for the
person(s) cooking. Thus, the physical-material spatialization in the
kitchen loses its significance. However, the symbolic meaning as a
femininely associated and devalued place of housework is crucial for the
devaluation of the Thermomix itself. In view of the increasing
digitalization of the appliance - for example, communication via
smartphone, for example, from the supermarket - and alternative uses, on
the one hand, demarcations are possible and the functional separation of
interior living spaces is called into question; on the other hand, old
boundaries of gendered division of labor within the living space harden.

3. Kitchen Technology is Political: Human-Technology

Relations between Spatialization and Dissolution of
Boundaries

Ultimately, when viewing the Thermomix as a socio-technique in the

gendered household, boundaries between work and leisure as well as
between people, work and technology become subtly blurred. At the
same time, the use of the appliance solidifies boundaries in the gendered
division of labor, such as the double burden on women, because this is
legitimized and made invisible by the technology. The Thermomix also
contributes to the veiling and individualizing effects of household
technologization. Human-technology relations are not only determined by
gendered divisions of labor as frames of reference, but generate them
themselves in specific spatial contexts. Since new technologies have the
potential to overcome spatial boundaries, but at the same time can render
labor invisible, the question now is how their properties could be used to
generate possible new visibilities for an emancipatory use of technology.
Considering gendered Thermomix practices, both physical-material and
symbolic aspects should be used to answer this question. To be sure, the
interviews provided little information about the effects of shifts in
functional separation between residential interiors with increasing
mechanization. However, the inclusion of the apartment floor plans in
the analysis of the interviews is a starting point for further thinking about
the interactions between physical-material spaces and human-technology
relations. Following on from this, new questions arise about the needs of
household members in relation to their housing arrangements and how
emancipatory technology use might support these. Furthermore, an
economic perspective on access to housing and technologies would have
to be integrated in order to more precisely classify the entanglement of
power relations between space, technology and gender.
A Feminist Perspective on Human-Technology Relationships in the
Household can show how the relationship between technology and
gender interacts on structural, material, symbolic, and spatial levels. By
examining Thermomix practices, I explored the importance of the spatial
level of impact of the kitchen
236 s u b \ u r b a n 2021, Vol. 9, Issue 3/4

and questions about possible shifts in the gender division of labor and in
the (in)visibility of work and gender relations in residential interiors
were developed. It turned out that gendered division of labor as well as
the devaluation of activities with female connotations remain decisive
frames of reference for the technology and its use. The desire expressed
by the interview partners to redistribute responsibilities cannot be solved
by technology alone. Negotiation processes about the integration of the
Thermomix into the desired processes remained open or were non-
existent. Here we can sometimes see how powerful gendered arrangements
are in our society, in which new technologies find their way in. With
recourse to historical developments of social use of technology, connections
between social orders and new technologies become apparent. Feminist
STSs make an important contribution by conceptualizing technologies as
social relations and by conceptualizing moments of the relationship between
technology and gender at multiple levels of impact. As the history of kitchen
designs has shown, these transform in negotiations between the built
environment, technology, users, and architects. Consequently, to promote
emancipatory technology use, it is not enough to impose new, more
digital technologies with more and more functions on everyday
practices. Instead, the interplay of housing layouts, the needs of all
residents, and technology must be taken into account in the practices of
technology use and development. This means that, on the one hand, there
is no corresponding use without a desire for emancipation and that, on
the other hand, devices must be developed, at best, together with users
according to their needs and their living environment.
From a feminist perspective, technicization is so exciting because of its
boundaries between production/reproduction, labor/consumption,
active/passive, public/private, or male/female can be questioned and
evaluated. While technologies manifest gender inequalities as part of the
maintenance of the modern household, it is there that social norms, actual
practices, and materialities meet, always marked by contradictions. In
addition to questions about emancipatory negotiations of technology and
gender in the household, the goal of raising supposedly private relations
of technology to a social level and thus understanding the
interconnectedness of technical gender relations remains relevant. Kitchen
technology is political!

This article was supported by funds from the Open Access Publication
Fund of the University of Jena.

Endnotes

[1] Following Weber (2007) and Wajcman (1991), the terms technique and technology
will be used synonymously here: Technique/technology can thus describe physical
artifacts as well as forms of knowledge or types of activities (Wajcman 1991: 14).
Weber (2007: 8) expands Wajcman's concept of technology to describe entire
sociotechnical systems.
Hobbs 237

[2] The increasingly fluid understanding of gender identity since the 1990s has led to a softening
of the boundaries between female and male and between human and machine (cf. Haraway
1987). Nevertheless, historically specific-that is, mutable-relationships exist in which
gender differences exist. Technology and its use are embedded in existing gender
relations that are structurally and symbolically shaped by social notions of masculinity
and femininity. Therefore, I use the terms "woman" and "man," even though gender
identity is never exhausted in these binary categories.
[3] Following Nadine Marquardt (2019) and Alison Blunt and Robyn Dowling (2006), I
use the terms household, living space, and home respectively to refer to different
dimensions of feminist perspectives on housing. I include housing as a site of
reproductive labor under the term household. The term living space recurs to the
material, sociotechnical, and infrastructural environment of housing. The term home
implies that domestic spaces and a particular sense of belonging to them are first
produced through everyday practices, material culture, and social relations, what
Blunt and Dowling (2006: 3) call "home making."
[4] Today, the term Feminist Science and Technology Studies (Feminist Technoscience
Studies) includes most streams of Feminist Technology Studies (Weber 2017: 340).

Authors

Marlene Hobbs is a social geographer working on feminist geography, geographic housing

research, and digitization.
marlene.hobbs@uni-jena.de

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Kitchen technology is political! Studying the Thermomix

from a feminist perspective on human-technology-
relationships

Digital kitchen devices promise a solution to the incompatibility of

gainful employment and unpaid reproduction work, a challenge still
mostly affecting women. This article asks how domestic technologies
affect gendered reproduction work and how human-technology-relations
are expressed in spatialized practices. According to feminist urban
research and feminist technoscience, the home and domestic practices
are considered central to the negotiation of gender relations and as
significant site of technization. In my research on the digitalized food
processor "Thermomix" I ask about the meaning of the technology for
gendered practices in the household. Through its spatialization and
symbolic references the kitchen technology and its use show how
gendered human-technology-relations help organize work and the
domestic, therefore manifesting gender inequality but also enabling new
kinds of visibility.
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